Saturday, June 4, 2011

Stick cricket – Dominated Srilanka

I am man of my word J Here’s the first post in my StickCricket Series.

I played the “World Domination” mode. In this mode, we have to defeat the opposing cricketing nation by chasing their score in 20 overs. Once we defeat the lowest ranked team, we progress to the next time. I had to defeat Srilanka and I did so. Here’s my account of what happened.

(Scroll to the very bottom for the scorecard. But be sure to read my account J)

VVS RCKSTR’s Vs SriLanka

It was match no.5 against SriLanka. For 5 long matches, Srilanka had managed to put off the VVS storm but no longer. Here’s what happened.

Adarsh and Paul, the best opening pair for the Rockstar’s opened the innings as always. The first over was bowled by the best slinger in the world, “THE” Malinga. However, Adarsh didn’t let that haunt him. He smashed him all over the park and the very first over yielded 26 runs. It was a great start to the innings and Paul had to keep it up in the next over. He bettered Adarsh by hitting 28 runs off D. Fernando. The opening pair caused extensive damage to the Srilankan pacemen. They managed to take their score to 213 in just 8 overs. They had accomplished this feat before too but, they just couldn’t take on the spinners and it resulted in them losing the match but not this time.

Murlitharan was clobbered away for fours and sixes all over the ground by Adarsh but soon Adarsh fell to the wizard’s clever bowling. He was out for 133 off just 36 balls. The coach hoped that this wouldn’t cause a batting order collapse and he was not disappointed. In Adarsh’s absence, Paul took on the spinners and this time, Ajantha Mendis,the guily leg-spinner was at the receiving end. The overs went on and surprising the Rockstar’s managed to keep the required run-rate on check. While Paul was taking on Mendis, Ibrahim managed to show star’s during the day to Thisara Perera, the annoying medium pacer. Ibrahim managed to hit 50 runs off just 15 balls. That was a superb cameo by him. Next in, was Ebadh. He had to face the Ajantha Mendis over and I was a bit scared to be honest. Paul had been taking care of him but Ebadh was new to the crease. The question remained “Can he do it?”. He replied by clobbering Mendis for 4 fours and a Six. But, the very next over, he fell for a doosra by Murali. Paul fell soon. It was Harindra’s and Bradman’s responsibility to see to that Rockstar’s would win. They scrambled for 3’s and saw to that the required run was under 20.

3 overs left, 55 runs required. Can they do it? Muralitharan bowled the 18th over. I was literally pleading Harindra to hit more than 22 runs and he didn’t disappoint. He clobbered murali for 24 runs in that over. We required 34 from two overs and the Bradman didn’t give SriLanka any respite. He managed to get the required runs down to 15 off the last over. 15 was quite reachable but then, two wickets would change the match and Muralitharan was unpredictable. But, today was not the day. Harindra finished the match in just 3 balls, 6-4 and a 6. He finished at a jaw-dropping 46 off just 11 balls and Bradman at 23 of 5 balls. They both played well under pressure and saw to that they didn’t disappoint us.

Man Of the Match goes to Paul….for his magnificient 168 of just 43 balls.